If you recall, I poached the chicken in some water with onions, Mexican oregano and cilantro. I then shredded the chicken. I used some for our chicken filling and some for this soup.

Of course, I saved the resulting liquid.

The soup base is simply onions (1 or 2), tomatoes (1 to 3) and anywhere from 1 to 4 chipotle peppers in adobo. I usually buzz them together in the food processor.

In this case, though, I just sliced the onions while the tomatoes and chipotles got buzzed. I've used fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes. Both works for me.

Then, it's a straight dump-into-the-pot.

This is where most of the waiting happens. The liquid mass above has to turn into a solid mass like below. This could take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes.

The broth goes in and gets boiled. The chicken goes in and gets heated through.

Then it's assemble at your will. We've fake-fried tortilla before (in the oven) to make them crisp. This time, we just used Que Pasa tortilla chips. Condiments include cilantro, lime, minced onion and queso fresco.

(We've never been able to get queso fresco, so we've used feta cheese in the past. Its briny nature added something different and delicious to the soup.)

Yep, just fine, fine particles of the hottest raw Jalapeno you can find. A crisp red one is your best hope. Sprinkle lightly over the surface of finished plate. Do not touch eyes. The floating little globs of melted cheese, with pepper dots, OMG. Watched the rednecks in Houston do this to canned tomato soup and even it was really good..... Just do it, everything Mexican.

I had some crushed tomatoes in my cupboard (an accidental purchase) and decided to try this recipe with those. My tomato/ onion/ chipotle mix was, as a result, pretty "goopy", and I confess I didn't wait for it to solidify as much as you did for yours. The end result, however, was a delicious, full-bodied, smooth, and tomato-y soup. This is probably one of those recipes that is difficult to do poorly, even when you're subbing in less-than-ideal ingredients. I don't doubt that rednecks in Houston can make variations taste good...